pork chops with mushroom gravy

Mmmm. Graaaaavy.

My Nana's mushroom gravy is the gravy yardstick I measure all others by. Any time I've ever asked her how to make it, she has just smiled and said, "Well, it's just gravy with mushrooms in it". I've been trying to re-create her gravy for YEARS, and I think this is about the closest I'll ever come. It IS very simple, but it's certainly not just gravy with mushrooms in it!

I started by searing seasoned pork chops in a pan with a bit of bacon fat, about three minutes per side. I had five pretty big rib and sirloin chops to do, so the pan built up a nice fond. Once the chops were seared and set aside, I added some chopped shallot to the pan and let it soften. To that, I added some chopped cremini mushrooms. A few minutes later, I sprinkled the whole thing with a tablespoon of flour (normally we avoid gluten, but sometimes you just want old-school gravy. Don't judge.), gave it a stir, and let it cook for about a minute or so. I slowly added beef stock, stirring and scraping up the bits of good stuff from the bottom of the pan. After adding the beef stock, I added black pepper and rosemary, and let the gravy come to a boil and cook for 3-4 minutes. It needed just a pinch of salt at the end, then we were ready to eat. Sides were steamed broccoli and sweet potato mashed with butter.

lazy broccoli salad

I really like broccoli salad. You know, the kind with bacon and cranberries or raisins and nuts and bacon. Mmm, bacon.

What?

Oh, yeah. Salad.

So, broccoli salad is kind of a pain in the ass to make. There's a lot of chopping involved - more chopping than I want to do on most nights after work, frankly. I decided to try using a bag of shredded broccoli slaw instead, and it worked very well. Plus it took about a tenth as long to prepare.

Crunchy!

 

The rest of the plate is pretty self-explanatory - leftover chicken thighs and sliced tomato. Ta-da! Quick, lazy Whole30 compliant dinner (if you use olive oil mayo and make sure your dried cranberries don't have any added sugar, anyway).

beef and broccoli

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I had some chuck steak to use up and a craving for Chinese. I cut the steak up and marinated it in a mixture of tamari, ginger, garlic, and a splash of sherry. While the meat marinated, I sliced up some white button mushrooms, some white onion, and cut up some broccoli florets. I stir-fried the veggies in some coconut oil first, then dumped them into a bowl (it was truly an unceremonious dumping, I promise you) and stir-fried the meat. When the meat was almost done, I added a cup of beef broth with a tablespoon of corn starch stirred in, and let that come to a boil. I added the veggies back in and tossed everything well to coat, then it was done! And tasty!

beef with onions, garlic, carrots and allspice

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I threw a beef chuck roast in the crock pot with a handful of baby carrots (wish I'd had more, honestly...but I ran out), half a sliced onion, three sliced cloves of garlic, some allspice, salt, pepper, a bottle of beer and a cup or so of water. I let it simmer on low all day. When it was done, the beef was literally fall-apart tender. The allspice gives the meat a nice hint of warmness. Not heat, really...but just a warm spicy note. I steamed some broccoli to go with it, which was a nice match. Yummy!

another turkey burger variation

One of the things I love most about cooking is being able to open the fridge, pull out some seemingly useless bits of stuff, and make something tasty out of them. Burgers are endlessly versatile, and thus work very well for for me on those use-up-the-random-bits nights.

Tonight I had ground turkey, some mushrooms, onions and a little bit of chopped fresh parsley that I wanted to use up. I sliced up the mushrooms and half of the onion and tossed them into a pan with some olive oil. While those cooked down, I grated the rest of the onion and mixed it into the ground turkey along with the chopped parsley and a dash of cayenne pepper. By the time my onion and mushroom was done cooking down, I had the burgers made. I scooped out the onions and mushrooms, added a little more oil, and put the patties into the hot pan to cook. When they were done, I topped them with a slice of cheese and the hot onions and mushrooms.

The broccoli was just stir-fried with a few cloves of garlic, and the oven fries were my standard Yukon Gold wedges tossed with sea salt, olive oil and some dried chives.

The only thing I'd do differently next time would be to use Swiss cheese instead of American...other than that, I thought they came out great.